PEACEFUL PROTEST

The 26^th March saw two rather different gatherings.

One in New York’ Central park on what was Easter Day, 26^th March 1967, 45 years ago.

The Easter be-in was organized by Jim Fouratt an actor, Paul Williams editor of Crawdady magazine, Susan Hartnett head of a the Experiiments in Art and Technology organization and Chilean poet and playwright Clau Badal. With a budget of $250 they printed 3,000 posters and 40,000 small notices designed by Pteer Max and distributed them around the city. The Police and Parks Departments quietly and unofficially cooperated with the organizers.

An estimated 10,000 people participated in the event at the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. The majority of participants were hippies. They were joined by families who had attended the Easter Parade and members of the Spanish community who were notified of the event by Spanish language posters. The New York Times described them as “poets from the Bronx, dropouts from the East Village, interior decorators from the East Side, teachers from the West Side and teeny boppers from Long Island” and said that “they wore carnation petals and paper stars and tiny mirrors on foreheads, paint around the mouth and cheeks, flowering bedsheets, buttons and tights”.

The event was guarded by small number of police. At 6:45 a.m. the first police car arrived. The car was covered flowers with while the crowd chanted of “daffodil power” at which point the police quickly retreated. While police held their distance most of the day, 5 officers did approach two nude participants, at which point the officers were surrounded while the crowd chanted “We love cops/Turn on cops”. The situation was defused when the crowd at the urging of other participants backed off.  At 7:30 at night the police beamed lights on the group and used bullhorns to tell participants to disperse. Again the police were rushed by participants. Following a brief period of tension the police decided to let the event continue.

The second event was the 2011 anti-cuts protest in London, also known as the March for the Alternative, was a demonstration held in central London on 26^th  March 2011. Organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), it was a protest march against planned public spending cuts by the Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition government.
Various sources estimated that the demonstration was attended by between 250,000 and 500,000 people. It was described as the largest protest in the United Kingdom since the 15^th February 2003 anti-Iraq War protest and the largest union-organised rally in London since the Second World War.

Demonstrators marched from the Thames Embankment, via the Houses of Parliament to Hyde Park where a rally took place with speakers including the TUC general secretary Brendan Barber and leader of the opposition Ed Milliband, who addressed the assembled crowds.

Several independent protesting groups, some of whom had moved from the main march, assembled further north in the heart of London's West End, where shops and banks were vandalised and some individuals clashed with police. Further clashes were reported later in Trafalgar Square. 201 people were arrested, and 66 were injured, including 31 police officers.

Admittedly there were over 25 times plus, as many people in London 2011 than in New York in 1967, but no one got hurt, not even police officers. 1967 was a year full of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations all over the world, many took place in Central Park in New York. It is a surprise that an Easter Day event in 1967 was so peaceful.

Here is another peaceful event in Central Park – not on the 26^th March, but who cares.